


Building the Western Air Temple

by Jisa_Patryn



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Airbending & Airbenders, Earthbending & Earthbenders, Gen, Non-Combative uses of Bending, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, Some racism and racial slurs towards Airbenders, Western Air Temple, Zuko's guilt, architecture, because the Western Air Temple is so pretty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-04
Updated: 2016-05-04
Packaged: 2018-06-06 10:25:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6750160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jisa_Patryn/pseuds/Jisa_Patryn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zuko hopes to fix some of the damage his actions caused, directly and indirectly.</p><p>Dhargey has a fantastic idea for the new Western Air Temple.  Now she just has to figure out how to actually build the improbable.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Building the Western Air Temple

-Several Hundred Years Ago- 

Dhargey fiddled with her scroll a little and stopped immediately when she saw some of the other people around her glancing at her. Even though she was here to commission one of the greatest works that had ever been built, she worried that the stubborn, hide-bound Earthbending Builder’s Guild would be more of a hindrance than help. The building she was in was itself was a true monument to Earthbending - with highly polished planes of decorative stonework and blocky pillars and doorways. It was also completely unoriginal. The Earth Kingdom symbol and earth-green were both ubiquitous. She’d been waiting in this lobby for what felt like hours, trying to settle herself with meditation. 

At last she was finally escorted in. Maybe this would be a bad idea and there would be no one here who would be able or willing to help, but Dhargey knew they would probably need the help of an Earthbender for this structure, and this was the best place to go to if she wanted Earthbender building experts.

“So,” the big man in green said, looking at her somewhat suspiciously. “To what do we owe the honor of your presence, Madame Airbender?”

“Ah, well, I’m Dhargey of the Air Nomads. Our Elders commissioned a new Western temple, and I was hoping to hire some Earthbenders to help us build it. We have the site and plans all picked out already, but I think construction might go better if we employed Earthbenders.”

“Well, I hope you are aware that we employ strict building regulations. Buildings commissioned outside of those regulations are not advised, nor are they insured. I’m afraid I’ll have to examine your buildings for structural integrity in order to make the commission available to our members, and I am unsure of who will have the time and energy to travel to…”

“The Fire Nation.”

“The Fire Nation? Are you sure that they’re ok with the fact that you’re setting up a temple in their backyard?”

“Oh, yes! We already host annual canyon runs there! It has the most excellent air currents, and the Fire Nation said that it was far too steep for them to use. And I did try to work with your building regulations.”

“The foundation is dry, has no major water drainage problems, with firm, packed, rock or earth?”

“Yes. And according to my calculations, it does have the integrity to hold up the projected temple as well.”

“Very well. Give me the plans. A representative will contact you within the month to let you know if they have been accepted.”

“A month?” Dhargey wanted to protest, but let it go. Ask for earth, and be ready to dance around earth, the Elders had warned her after all.

 

“Any new commissions?” Cho asked as he strolled into the Guild hall. He checked frequently because, well, because. He was trying to establish a reputation and demonstrate his skills. After all, any hack Earthbender could put up four walls and a roof - but an Earthbender with skill could do it in a way that ensured that earthquakes didn’t destroy it, or that it didn’t crumble with the slightest beating. He was no fighter, but he like to build things that endured.

“Well, we still have spaces for work on the Ba Sing Se walls. I know you don’t enjoy repeating other people’s work but it is a structural integrity test. Or, we have a new commission, from an air-head.” He laughed at his own joke. “It’s mostly sound - though I think whoever did this must have been high at some point during the design. The fountains are on the ceilings. But, you know, Airbenders.”

“Let me see,” Cho said. It looked like a reasonably normal temple, if one ignored that yes, the fountains were on the ceilings. There were a lot more notations about structural integrity than he expected from an Airbender, but that would hopefully make things easier for him. “Well, it’s definitely not wall building, not that there’s anything wrong with that!”

“You’re interested?” the other asked, surprised.

“Well,” Cho said, “it would be a great opportunity for me to...demonstrate my talents so to speak. And I have been hoping to find something that would give me a chance for that. Beggers can’t be choosers and all. Besides, if I actually do pull it off, I’ll have my choice in commissions after that. Everyone knows how hard Airbenders are to work with.”

-Present Day-

“Zuko!” Aang cried out, bouncing off the floor. Sometimes Aang really did consider gravity just a suggestion. 

“What?” Zuko tried not to be surly. This trip had, after all, been his idea. That didn’t make it any easier to try and work through the flowery language this particular Airbender had favored. Zuko still wasn’t sure if the scroll he was reading was philosophy, poetry, a math equation, or a joke. As Uncle had said, the Airbenders had had a real sense of humor sometimes - a terrible sense of humor.

“I found the blueprints for the Western Air Temple! Now we can really restore it the way it’s supposed to be! Also, I think the Airbenders had help building it - there’s some notes on here about how they got it to stay together and stuff.”

Currently Sokka and Katara were in the South Pole. While Katara had not been eager to leave Aang, nor Aang Katara, it had become clear that rebuilding from the war really was something that the Water Tribes hoped to do themselves. Katara had been planning to help rebuild, and receive some good lessons in healing last they heard. Aang had been convinced not to go as the words “cultural exchange” sounded in his ears. Not that Aang didn’t care for the Water Tribe culture or his friends, but one drew the line when one realized that Sea Prunes were going to be on the menu five days out of six. 

Well, Zuko had helped that along with his offer to Aang for them to explore some of the Air Nomad Temples and start planning ways to revive them.

Now, looking at the diagrams, Zuko wondered if maybe they should have included Toph, much as she hated flying. These blueprints were clearly notated by an Earthbender, and they might need her perspective to make sense of them.

-Several Hundred Years Ago-

“I thought that was a conceptual drawing.” Cho said, surprised he managed to make words at all.

“It is!” Dhargey was vibrating excitedly on the back of the Air Bison.

“No. But. I thought everything being upside down was just the theme.”

“That truly was the stroke of genius that convinced the Elders. They’re really excited about it!”

“But. How. But. It’s not very sensible.”

Dhargey turned to look at him, puzzled, and maybe finally realizing that he was having some trouble.

“It’s the Western Air Temple.”

“You said the foundation was sound! That it wasn’t broken or unstable! You said that the site didn’t have drainage problems!”

“It doesn’t!” Dhargey protested. “I even checked after a rainstorm. No leaks or anything! And I bet we could get fountains to work using gravity and run the pipes from the lake - it’s a little ways inland.”

Cho didn’t say anything else. He was kind of appalled anyone would come up with the idea to build something hanging from the bottom of a cliff. He was also appalled at himself for not realizing sooner. The upside-down fountains should have been a clue.

They continued onwards. Airbenders flitted in and out of caves in the cliff like starling-coons, and they eventually landed on one of the broader ledges. Stairs were built into the wall, crisscrossing each other and bisected with ravines.

Dhargey led Cho through an intricate path along the cliff wall. There were no handrails anywhere, and Cho had never been more grateful to his Earthbending to keep him steady. Dhargey stepped lightly, seemingly without fear or anxiety of the stark drop off. All at once, they came to a place where the path simply stopped, only to continue on the other side of a stark ravine. Without pause, Dhargey grasped a hanging rope and swung across the gap. She did pause on the other side so that she could toss the rope to Cho, who edged closer and tried to convince himself to make the jump.

Yeah. That was not happening.

Cho decided that this would be a good time to use some more Earthbending, and made a stone bridge. 

“Should I put it back?” he asked Dhargey, hesitantly. Maybe the reason the Airbenders didn’t put a bridge there was because they had no Earthbending builder in residence? 

But Dhargey shrugged and nodded her head. “It’d bug the benders who live here, and the whole philosophy thing. You know.”

“Ah. No. I don’t know.” Cho replaced the rock anyway.

“Air doesn’t manipulate the environment, it fits itself into an already existing space! Besides, it’s more fun this way.” 

“Wait.” Cho said, certain he’d heard Dhargey wrong. “I thought you were an Airbender.”

“Noooo.” Dhargey said.

“You’re not an Airbender!” Cho repeated, startled at the realization. 

“Of course not!” Dhargey exclaimed, “why did you think I was?”

“Well, um.” 

“It’s not like Air Bison only obey Airbenders.”

“I just thought all Air Nomads were Airbenders.”

“That’s silly! Not all people in the Earth Kingdom are Earthbenders!”

“Well, yes, but, everyone walks on the earth. It just seems unnatural that people who were not benders would choose to live in a place where you need bending to get around!”

“Have you seen me need to use bending to get around here yet?”

“No, but,”

“That’s because you don’t need Airbending to get around here.”

“But what if you fall?! There are no railings anywhere here!” 

Dhargey gave Cho a look. Cho hated that look. Then the madwoman jumped off the cliff. Cho rushed forward, but he couldn’t make out where Dhargey was, though there were several airbenders on gliders down below. 

“Hey!” Cho shouted, “have any of you seen Dhargey” All he got for his trouble was laughter. One of the gliders dove down and Airbent a massive gust of air straight up. Cho lept back, and found Dhargey landing nearby, a glider in hand that Cho had mistaken for a staff.

“I’m not an Airbender and so I can’t fly.” Dhargey stated. “But I am an Air Nomad and I’ve been in the air since I was seven. I can’t pull a lot of the fancy tricks the Airbenders pull, and I have to pay more attention to the air currents since I can’t sense them or manipulate them. I can’t go up much without a helping hand or a nice thermal, but with this kind of space there is no reason to worry about falling. After all, you’re not a Waterbender and you can swim!” She stalked off, angrier than either of them had anticipated.

Cho followed, sighing. Sometimes bending got to be a touchy subject among non-benders. There were certain jobs that one couldn’t hold as a non-bender, true, but generally there were options for non-benders that were in the field at least. A lot of the support staff at the Builders Guild were non-benders anyway. But sometimes when the parents were benders they often hoped the kids ended up benders too. Except that was the way it was in the Earth Kingdom.

“Dhargey, I’m sorry. You’re the first Air Nomad I spent a lot of time around. I just assumed that only Airbenders could use those gliders.”

She was sitting on the edge of a dropoff.

“It’s all right.” She finally said. “It’s a common misconception. And there are actually Air Nomads who leave to live somewhere else. Sometimes people with a little more of a practical bent find the focus on philosophy, spiritualism and sideways thinking difficult. It is harder to live here if you’re not a bender.”

“No. That’s not entirely right though. There are actually a lot of non-benders, and sometimes even people who aren’t Air Nomads who come to the temple to study. Usually it’s something like philosophy or spirit quests. The thing is that they don’t stay long, so you can’t really say that they live here…”

 

Cho settled into his Earthbending stance. He focused his attention on “feeling” the cliff face. Like much of the Fire Nation, it was primarily volcanic rock, though there seemed to be some limestone and granite as well. He frowned and Earthbent himself up the cliff. There, at the top, he started Earthbending their first test. He stretched his awareness into the rock, keeping his thoughts firm and steady to give the earth shape. There was the ‘floor’, and he could add all the architectural details he wanted later, this was to see if Dhargey’s insane plan would work. Next were the walls, then another floor, then more walls. The building grew from the base of the cliff and for a moment it was perfect - then Cho started losing hold of the ‘base’ of the building. It collapsed under its own weight.

Cho collapsed too, with exhaustion. Stone stacked. Earth built on top of itself. It didn’t hang in the open air, unsupported. Earth held together under pressure, but remove that pressure and it loses its integrity. 

Thank goodness he had had the foresight to try this well away from the paths the Airbenders generally took, and that he had requested that no one fly underneath while he was working.

It was as he thought. Dhargey’s plans, while imaginative, would need to be altered significantly because of the material properties of earth. Now that he had tried, he could start arguing for buildings built directly out from the cliff-face instead of hanging from the ceiling of this recess in the cliff.

“No,” was Dhargey’s immediate and unwavering response to Cho’s gentle suggestion. “We can have some buildings like that in the back, but not the buildings towards the front. This is to be the Western Air Temple, and my design was chosen because of its’ originality, grace and conceptual reflection of fundamental Air Nomad principles. The re-conceptualization of the Temple as a free-standing structure unbound by gravity is the entire point.”

“By Kyoshi, the Earth King and all the spirits woman, how many times do I have to tell you that earth simply does not do that?!?!” Cho might, very possibly, be regretting his decision. He had been warned, by nearly everyone he knew, not to expect much from Airbenders, but this woman’s determination to find a way around the laws of physics and earth was going to drive him mad.

Dhargey didn’t seem affected at all.

“Well, obviously it hasn’t ever been done before - no one’s even attempted it! That doesn’t mean it’s not possible, it just means that we have to find another way. Perhaps if we hollowed out the walls, would that make them light enough that it didn’t crack the foundations?”

“No!” Cho shouted. “The walls need to stay thicker than six inches, or else the whole thing is going to come down.”

Dhargey frowned. “No - it’s possible. I’ve seen it in some of the fire rocks. They have air pockets all through them and they’re light enough to float on water because of it.”

That made Cho pause.

“Show me.” He demanded, still irritated. Air and Earth are opposing elements; they don’t mix. But Fire is the element of transformation. It might form a bridge between the two…

“Oh!!” Cho exclaimed. “Dhargey, do you think you can get beams of iron? Or better yet, steel! I can’t believe I forgot something so obvious - this is the Fire Nation!”

“Um. Yes?” Dhargey said, clearly confused, and maybe doubting Cho’s sanity.

“The Fire Nation has no trouble making steel! We might be able to afford some. The transformation of fire makes it impossible for an Earthbender to manipulate it, but maybe I don’t have to.”

 

-Present Day-

 

“Hey Sparky! Twinkletoes! What’s up? Armed rebellion? Did Azula escape? Or did you just miss my charming personality?”

“What did you put in that letter Zuko?” Aang asked, amused.

“Nothing like that! I said it wasn’t urgent Toph!”

“Now Zuko, surely you’ve realized by now that I am on to you. You never ask for help or advice until stuff is completely out of control! It’s not my fault you’re the master of understatement. Also a drama queen.”

“How does that even work?” Zuko asked. Toph ignored him.

“So what’s up?” She asked again.

Aang grinned, excited, which made Zuko smile too, more hesitantly. Toph could feel him shifting his weight uncomfortably, the way he only did when he was hoping to do something right and hesitantly hopeful that he had managed it.

“We’re restoring the Western Air Temple!” Aang exclaimed.

“And we ran into some things in the architectural drawings...”

“Ohhh! You mean the steel I-beams, and the way the architect bent the rock? I have to say, whoever did it was a pretty clever bender. Not as talented as me of course, but not shabby.”

“Steel I-beams?” Aang asked.

“Close your eyes and listen to what’s going on in the Earth for once! You and me are going to have some serious Earthbending lessons this trip if you’re still this bad.” Toph scoffed, “there are steel I-beams in all the freestanding parts of the temple, and the rock is actually bend in some pretty interesting ways too - I think they were trying to make it lighter.”

“They would have had to get those from the Fire Nation,” Zuko commented, “no one else was producing steel then.”

“Lucky the Fire Nation’s so close then.” Aang said smiling, and Zuko didn’t even wince this time.

“Toph, would you and your Metalbending students be interested in helping with the repairs? It might make for a good project in using metal in construction,” Zuko asked.

“Maybe,” Toph said. “I’ll ask them. And I hate to bust anyone’s bubble, but, who’s going to live here when it’s done?”

Aang shrugged, clearly trying not to look too upset. “The Mechanist and some others live at the Northern Air Temple, maybe now that the war’s over, someone will want to come live at the Western Air Temple. Plus, the Temples weren’t really places to live all the time anyway. We were called Air Nomads for a reason. They were most popular as spiritual retreats and ‘places of contemplation’. Not too much contemplation though!”

“Well, I’d like to see it used to educate others about Air Nomads, their culture and such. The Fire Nation needs to seriously revamp the curriculum, and I hope that visiting places like this could help,” Zuko added, contemplative. “If nothing else, I’d like to make sure the damage from the fight with ‘Combustion Man’ is repaired.”

“The Air Temples were a place where the Air Nomads came together to share knowledge. They were where Air Bison were raised and where kids grew up. In some ways they were places of education and learning. I think teaching Fire Nation students about this place is a great idea, and one that follows the original purpose and ideals of the Western Air Temple.” Aang’s words made Zuko shift in that way he did when he was embarrassed but happy.

“In that case,” Toph said, “let’s get to it.”


End file.
